iShake it Like A Polaroid Picture

I'm on record as being a member of the AntiApple Squad, wishing the blue screen of death on all infidels. Or is that iInfidels? Whatever. The point is, it should come as no surprise that I am completely baffled by the appeal of this shake ability with the iPhone.

What'choo talkin' about Willis? Well, assuming you haven't been living under the proverbial rock, some features within certain applications on the phone allow/require you to physically shake your phone. Yes, that's shaken, not stirred, Mr. Bond.

For example, there's an application that will locate your position via GPS, then find you the nearest restaurants. Nice, huh? Well, folks, there's more. With this baby, you can have the phone randomly select the restaurant from the list of local eateries.

By shaking your phone.

It's like a slot machine; you sit and watch the list whiz by, slowing crawling to a stop. Okay Vanna, let's show these good people what they've won!

There's another application that will allow you to roll dice on the screen. By shaking it back and forth, and then watching the 3D dice bounce around the 2D screen (which, really then, makes it 2D doesn't it?) and roll to a stop. iCraps, anyone?

And of course, there's the inevitable take on the "naughty pen" - an image of a woman in a bikini, and if you shake the phone hard enough she starts to lose her clothing. And apparently her sense of self-worth.

Maybe I'm just the retarded one, and if so I fully accept the responsibilities that title comes with - but do I really want to shake this $300 piece of technology to get it to work? I mean, sure I do that at work with my computer screen - "Goddamnit you piece of crap, load...!" (slap slap), but am I really expecting that to DO something?

No, it's anger management.

I'm picturing a whole new generation of phone users, iPeople strolling down the block, shaking their wrists like they're choking the iLife out of their iPhones, literally squeezing information out of it. Was Homer Simpon prescient? "Why you little...!"

I can see the lawsuits now. Will we get a new round of carpal tunnel syndrome, from people hurting their wrists trying to find their way home? How about the ones with sweaty palms, the same Wii-mote users who hurled those innocuous white controllers smack into the middle of their $4500 plasma television screens? Will the ground be littered with the parts of broken iPhones (iLitter?) because of all the slippery palms dropping the delicate devices to the unforgiving concrete?

Perhaps parents can now start disciplining their kids in public again; we can call it the iDefense. "Your honor, I was trying to find out where the little monster flushed my keys to...shaking works to get info out of my phone, I figured it would work on my kid too!"


iInsane, iI know. But anything is iPossible.